The Case for Cold Showers

A morning tip for today. And probably tomorrow, too.

Let's place the wake-you-up benefits of a cold shower aside for now, because waking up cold from drafty bedside windows outweighed that for the winter months a long time ago. But what we're talking here is actually fat burning. According to an endocrinologist who used to work at the National Institutes of Health and his fellow researchers, shivering for ten to fifteen minutes might burn as much fat as an hour of exercise. One researcher explained to abc.net.au:

"We invite individuals, healthy individuals, and expose them to cold temperatures from [64 degrees Fahrenheit] all the way to [53 degrees] until they shiver and measure the hormones levels in their body.

"And we found as the temperature dropped, the individuals started to shiver and two hormones in the body increased."

Both of those hormones are also present when people work out.

Frankly, this still sounds excruciating, and we don't know if we'll do it instead of working out. We just thought we'd let you know in case you were smart enough to live in a place that is warm year-round—or just with better windows.